Sophie Scholl and the White Rose by Annette Dumbach

Author:Annette Dumbach
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780740508
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2017-11-29T05:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

ALTHOUGH Sophie had some grounds for rejoicing in the early days of October 1942, she seemed to remain depressed.

The good news was that Robert Scholl, after serving two of his four months in prison, was released without explanation, although prohibited from practicing his profession. Sophie had also completed the eight weeks of work for the war effort, and now, as she wrote Fritz Hartnagel, who had been transferred to the Stalingrad front,

Hans is coming back from Russia. Now I really should be happy that he is back with us, and I am, and I’m already sketching out the days we’ll be able to spend together in our small flat in Munich . . . and yet, I can’t be completely happy. The insecurity we live in constantly casts its shadow; it won’t allow any positive planning for tomorrow and all the coming days. It hangs over me day and night and never leaves me for a minute. . . . When will the time finally come when we won’t need to clutch on with all our strength and alertness to things that are not worth the effort? . . . Every word, before it’s uttered, has to be considered from all sides to see if the slightest shimmer of ambiguity exists. Trust in other people has to give way to suspicion and watchfulness. Oh, it’s exhausting and discouraging.

Sophie was grappling with a desperation that appears to have had personal aspects beyond her concerns about her family and the war. It seems that she had been strongly drawn to Alex Schmorell since she had arrived in Munich, and the attraction may not have been reciprocated. In her diary during the period when Alex, Hans, and Willi were in Russia, she referred often, if obliquely, to Alex. Then, on October 10, 1942, she wrote:

This morning I was at the Schmorrels’ [in Munich] in Shurik’s room, looking for books. What false dreams people can create for themselves! Months ago I was still thinking my feelings for Shurik were greater than for anyone else. But this was such a false delusion! It was only my vanity that wanted to possess a person who had value in the eyes of others. I distort my own self-image in a ridiculous way.

It was not a time for auspicious beginnings. The atmosphere in Germany had become grimmer. Winter was coming, coal for heating was getting scarce, and the air raids over Munich and South Germany were stepping up. The prospect of spending winter nights in unheated black cellars while bombs whistled down was bringing out a bleak despair in the population.

Munich suffered its first direct air raid the night of October 30, 1942. An aristocrat living in the country outside Munich described it in his diary:

. . . a hideous red glare, transforming the autumn night and its full moon. I heard in the distance the muffled booms. . . . It had taken three minutes for the sound to carry, three minutes during which the victims at the scene had been gasping and gagging and dying.

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